Videos from SPACE Now Available

Leaders from government, industry, and academia gathered at the AIAA SPACE 2013 Conference & Exposition, 10–12 September, in San Diego, CA, for a very productive and well-attended event. The Institute thanks its sponsors, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, and all those who participated. If you were not able to attend, a number of the panel discussions were video recorded and are available for viewing, below.

The conference, with a theme of “Sparking Ingenuity and Collaboration to Enable Mission Success,” kicked off Tuesday, 10 September, with opening remarks by AIAA President Michael D. Griffin, followed by a number of panel discussions. In his introduction, Griffin expressed his congratulations to the LCROSS Team for receiving the AIAA Space Systems Award, and to Lt Gen Eugene Tattini, USAF (Ret), the recently retired Deputy Director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for receiving the AIAA von Braun Award for Excellence in Space Program Management. Both awards were presented during SPACE 2013. Griffin said, “JPL is one of the nation’s crown jewels in the space business. I am a proud alumnus of the laboratory. And, for the last 12 years, Gene Tattini is the guy who has made sure that that crown jewel has stayed well polished. So Gene, I am just personally delighted to see that award.” When congratulating LCROSS, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Team, Griffin said, “Interest in the moon is on the rise as I have long believed it should be. LCROSS was a brilliantly conceived mission, a very low-cost approach to making a determination concerning the water resources on the moon that will be available for future developers of a lunar base, or lunar bases.” He added, “As I said, brilliantly conceived, tremendously innovative, brilliantly executed.” (Pictured: AIAA President Michael D. Griffin addresses SPACE 2013 attendees)

Griffin then turned the stage over to Lt Gen Larry James, USAF (Ret), Deputy Director, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and moderator for the opening plenary, “A Conversation with Space Executives.” In introducing the panel, James said, “As you look at what we’re supposed to be talking about: the space landscape is changing - And, boy there’s a lot wrapped up in that. We’ve brought together what I consider to be a really tremendous team of panelists to talk about that particular issue, challenge, and opportunity, that we’re all going to be facing as we look ahead.” Watch this panel discussion here.

The first day of the AIAA SPACE 2013 Conference wrapped up with a well-attended opening night reception, as well as a Rising Leaders in Aerospace networking reception.

Day two kicked off with an 0800–0900 hrs panel discussion on “Space Exploration for Inspiration and Profit,” moderated by Bruce Pittman, Director of Flight Projects and Chief System Engineer, NASA Space Portal, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. This panel addressed the ongoing debate within the scientific community, and within and among agencies, of where to go next in space. Since the private sector has essentially said “we’re going” both for inspiration and for profit the following questions were tackled during this discussion: How do we merge these approaches? Where are the synergies? How can one enable the other? How can government agencies work together with the private sector to achieve goals? And, how can technologies derived be leveraged for future efforts? Panelists included, Dan Dumbacher, Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC; Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, Planetary Resources, Inc., Seattle, WA; and Robert (Bob) Richards, Co-Founder and CEO, Moon Express Inc., Moffett Field, CA. Watch this panel discussion here.

From 1000–1200 hrs, a panel discussion took place on “Designing with Operation in Mind: Perspective of Former Astronauts.” This panel brought together operators and designers to discuss past operational and integration challenges that have the potential to inform future design efforts, with a focus on lessons learned from operation of the International Space Station. The panel was moderated by John P. Shannon, Program Manager, International Space Station, Boeing Space Exploration, The Boeing Company, Houston, TX. Panelists included Frank Culbertson, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, VA; Michael Lopez-Alegria, President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation; Sandra H. Magnus, Executive Director, AIAA; and Garrett Reisman, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX). Magnus summed up the primary objective of this panel when she said, “We need to have a better way of taking the things we learn as operators directly to the engineers so they can learn from our experiences what works and what doesn’t work.” Watch this panel discussion here.

William H. Gerstenmaier: “There are a lot of misconceptions about what the asteroid redirect mission is, and I think this is a great forum for us to interact and discuss back and forth and get some of those things clarified and understand where we’re heading.”

Paul Chodas: “NASA is the world leader in searching for asteroids, so we know a few things about how to find them. Since 1998 NASA’s NEO Search programs have found a vast majority of all known NEOs, including 95% of the 1KM and larger NEOs which was the prime purpose of this program, to find the hazardous asteroids, those that might hit the earth, and the large ones, 1KM in size, that would be dangerous enough that they could cause a global catastrophe. So those were the first priority of NASA’s NEO observations program. Right now we know about 10,000 NEOs and we’re finding them at about 1,000 per year.”

Brian Muirhead: “We’ve been looking for technical and programmatic feasibility, and what we’ve found is what we believe is a very versatile and very robust set of options, a set of tools that we can put together, to not only do the redirect mission but also to do a planetary defense demonstration if NASA wants to do that. We can do science missions and obviously we’re about doing exploration missions. So the technologies that we’ve been focusing on, SEP, mission designs, the proximity operations, are all affordable steps towards a future that includes potential exploration of both the moon and Mars.”

James Reuther: “From a space technology mission directorate standpoint, our perspective is that we recognize that solar electric propulsion, and specifically high powered solar electric propulsion, is something that multiple agencies, the commercial sector, and certainly NASA, has a strong interest in developing for the future.”

Steve Stich: “When you look at the smorgasbord of (missions) we could go do, I think this asteroid mission is a really incredible mission. If you think about where we’ll be in the 2021–2023 timeframe when we do this mission, it will have been 50 years since we went to the moon in 1972 with Apollo. And we’ve done many, many, great things in space with the International Space Station, which we continue to do today, with space shuttle, which I was a large part of. And when you think about what America is about, what our space program ought to be about, it ought to be about doing bold missions.”

From 1430–1630 hrs, a panel discussion took place focusing on “Stimulating Innovation: Societal Imperatives and Commercial Opportunities.” Moderated by AIAA President Michael D. Griffin, this panel discussed the significant impacts that space technology has had on society and the ways that it will continue to do so. Panelists included Tim Budzik, Managing Director, Houston Technology Center, Houston, TX; William C. Martel, Associate Professor of International Security Studies, The Fletcher School, Tufts University, Medford, MA; and Cheryl Nickerson, Professor, The Biodesign Institute, Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Watch this panel discussion here.

Day two of AIAA SPACE 2013 wrapped up with a well–attended networking happy hour, followed by the William H. Pickering Lecture, which focused on the Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory.

The final day of the conference, Thursday, 12 September, featured a number of excellent panel discussions. From 0800–0930 hrs, a discussion took place on “Aligning Technology Roadmaps to Support Space Goals,” moderated by Carissa Christensen, Managing Partner, The Tauri Group, Alexandria, VA. This panel brought together space community stakeholders for a discussion around technology roadmaps and how various initiatives across government and industry can align to support science, exploration, and defense goals. Emerging technologies that could impact the way we approach the development and exploration of space were also part of the conversation. Panelists included Michael Gazarik, Associate Administrator, Space Technology, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC; Maj Gen Neil McCasland, USAF, Past Commander, Air Force Research Laboratory, Albuquerque, NM; Pamela Melroy, Deputy Director, Tactical Technology Office, DARPA, Arlington, VA; and Kenneth Washington, Vice President, Advanced Technology Center, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Denver, CO. Watch this panel discussion here.

With AIAA SPACE 2013 having recently concluded, now is the time to start thinking ahead to AIAA SPACE 2014, and what topic you’ll want to address with your paper submission. The AIAA Space and Astronautics Forum and Exhibition will take place 5–7 August 2014, in San Diego, CA. Make sure to sign up to receive an email event alert when the Call for Papers becomes available in November.

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